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It wasn’t 9 a.m. in Washington D.C. before news began to trickle out of Doha on Tuesday morning that an Israeli-led bombing campaign targeted senior Hamas officials in Qatar’s capital. Khalil al-Hayya, an exiled Gaza chief and lead negotiator, was the main target, along with a group of negotiators who had gathered to discuss President Donald Trump’s ceasefire deal as Israel pushes forward with its plan to level and seize Gaza City. The strikes, carried out by 15 fighter jets, mark the Israeli military’s latest offensive after similar bombing campaigns were carried out in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Yemen, and Tunisia this year.
“This criminal attack constitutes a flagrant violation of all international laws and norms and a serious threat to the security and safety of Qataris and residents of Qatar,” read a statement by Majed al-Ansari, spokesperson for Qatar’s Foreign Ministry, following Tuesday morning’s attack. “While strongly condemning this attack, the State of Qatar affirms that it will not tolerate this reckless Israeli behavior and its continued tampering with regional security, as well as any action targeting its security and sovereignty.”
The military strike, which occurred near a residential area in Doha, claimed the life of al-Hayya’s son and an aide who was present at Tuesday’s meeting, according to Hamas officials. Qatari officials also stated that a police officer had died in the strikes. In response to the incursion, Qatar announced the suspension of its mediation role between Israel and Hamas. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich celebrated the attack and repeated Israel’s intent to hunt down Hamas officials wherever they seek refuge.
“Terrorists have no and will have no immunity from the long arm of Israel anywhere in the world,” Smotrich said, recalling the assassination of the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran last July. Tuesday’s strike in Doha is just the latest in a series of bombings and assassinations conducted by Israel throughout the Middle East in the two years after terrorists killed more than 1,300 Israelis during attacks on October 7, 2023. Since that day, Israel has eliminated a host of Hamas leaders, including Saleh al-Arouri, Yahya Sinwar, and Marwan Issa amid deepening criticism of its actions in Gaza and throughout the Middle East by members of the international community.
Following the attack, Saudi leaders warned of the “grave consequences resulting from the Israeli occupation’s persistence in its criminal transgressions and its blatant violation of the principles of international law.” The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman condemned Israel’s “criminal act” in Doha, affirmed the Kingdom’s support for Qatar, and announced his military’s “readiness to deploy all capabilities” in support of the Qataris. Anwar Gargash, a senior diplomatic adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates, also announced that the UAE “stands heart and soul with our sisterly state of Qatar.”
Middle Eastern leaders were not alone in their vocal condemnation of Tuesday’s attack. French President Emmanuel Macron condemned Israel and called the strikes “unacceptable, no matter what their motives are.” The United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer joined Macron in condemning Israel’s attacks, arguing that the strikes “violate Qatar’s sovereignty and risk further escalation across the region.”
In a statement posted to X following the strike, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the decision and took full responsibility for the strikes in Doha. “Today’s action against the top terrorist chieftains of Hamas was a wholly independent Israeli operation,” Netanyahu wrote. “Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and Israel takes full responsibility.”
Although Netanyahu was quick to accept full responsibility for the strikes, keen observers could not help but recognize the hand that President Donald Trump must have played. After all, it had been Trump’s administration, via Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, who had laid the groundwork for such a ceasefire meeting in Doha earlier this week. And it was also Trump, this Sunday, who demanded that Israeli hostages be returned before issuing his “last warning” to the leaders of Hamas.
Then there’s the matter of Al Udeid Air Base, the largest U.S. military facility in the Middle East. Located just south of Doha, the air base acts as regional headquarters for the U.S. Central Command. With 10,000 American troops stationed at the military installation, it would be erratic even by Israeli standards to strike Doha without warning the United States beforehand. According to the Axios reporter Barak Ravid, it appears the Israelis did reach out to U.S. officials shortly before strikes were executed.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who visited with Netanyahu in Israel during the House’s recess in August, spoke before Trump and said that Tuesday’s strikes were unexpected before pivoting to a defense of Israel. “I don't know anything about that development,” Speaker Mike Johnson told press members in response to the strikes. “Hamas has to be eradicated. You've got to remove that threat on the immediate border, frankly, within the bounds of Israel."
Though Johnson stated Israel must “remove the threat on the immediate border,” Doha is more than 1,000 miles away from Israel’s border and was chosen, explicitly by U.S. and Middle East officials, to act as a safe intermediary site for good-faith negotiations.
It wasn’t until she was prompted by anxious reporters nearly eight hours after the strikes in Doha that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt conveyed Trump’s mixed thoughts on Thursday afternoon, reiterating the president’s friendship with the Emir of Qatar and stating that Israel’s bombing campaign “does not advance Israel or America’s goals.” Trump said he “immediately directed Special Envoy Witkoff to inform the Qataris of the attack” upon learning of the impending strikes but that it was “too late to stop the attack.”
When exactly the Trump administration was actually informed of the strikes and by whom was debated throughout the morning with early reports suggesting the Israelis told Washington only moments before launching the attack. Leavitt attempted to clarify the timeline but only raised further questions when she stated that the U.S. military informed the White House of the impending strikes before word was then relayed to Qatar.
But Qatari spokesperson Majed al-Ansari rejected the White House’s recollection of events. “The statements being circulated about Qatar being informed of the attack in advance are baseless,” al-Ansar wrote in a statement released on X. Later, Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani said they only received word from the U.S. 10 minutes after the attack had already begun.
“The Israeli attack that took place today in the state of Qatar, we can only call it state terrorism” said the Qatar prime minister in an evening news conference. “I think we have reached a decisive moment. There should be retaliation from the whole region in the face of those barbaric actions.”
Though Israel’s strikes failed to eliminate top Hamas targets, Tuesday’s actions undoubtedly create new tensions between Qatar and its Western allies, a discouraging reality that will likely make negotiations for peace in the region only more difficult. Israel’s bombing in Doha, which the Trump administration characterized as necessary for peace, does little to help broaden the Abraham Accords, Trump’s signature attempt to normalize relations between Israel and Arab nations. And for Qatar, which has watched its nation be used as a backdrop for bombing campaigns by both Israel and Iran this summer, what good does posing as the Middle East’s leading diplomatic state do when you’re only treated as its dumping ground?
Yet again, the Israelis are unstable actors who run roughshod and without reprimand across the Middle Eastern theater. For Qatar, which has set up Doha as the de facto global conflict mediator, it’s a reminder that, when you position yourself as the world’s diplomatic weigh-station these days, you can fully expect an assassination or two.